We can read all about your life from your
bio in the jacket flap of your book. So, what's a completely random fact about
you that most people don't know?

I
have the blackest of black thumbs and kill every plant I touch. I have been
ordered to stay out of our garden, except to look, and we do not own a single
houseplant.

As a kid, what was your favorite book?
Have your tastes changed since growing up?

I know this makes me one of millions, but THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
was my hands down favorite when I was a kid. My father gave them to me for my
eighth birthday and I think I read the entire series at least once a year. They
were the first fantasy books I read and I was just gobsmacked by the idea that
authors were allowed to make things up;
they didn’t have to ground their stories in reality. That was the moment I
decided I wanted to make things up for a living. Since I still read fantasy,
and now write it, I would have to say that my tastes haven’t changed much since
then.

What’s the most
interesting historical fact that you discovered while writing GRAVE MERCY,
which takes place in a world based on medieval France? (Either one that ended
up in the book, or one that didn’t make the cut.)

There were so many! It’s hard to pick just one. Because it ended
up being so very central to the story, I would have to say it was the degree to
which the
early Catholic
Church intentionally (as in it was part of the instructions it gave its clergy)
set out to incorporate so many pagan deities, festivals, and locations into
their own tradition. It was a well thought out tactic in luring reluctant
unbelievers into the fold of the church. Gods and goddesses became saints,
Catholic holidays were planned to coincide with pagan festivals, and churches
were built on or near ancient holy sites. In fact, that was one of the sparks
for the book, a photograph of a stone church built right next to a pagan
standing stone.

YOUR BOOK

It's the inevitable question: what
inspired GRAVE MERCY?

I
knew I wanted to write the story of a girl who was utterly powerless and put
her through all the trials and ordeals that would shape her into an instrument
of power—not just physical power, but also the power to stand firmly in her own
self and make her own choices and decisions.

For that kind
of story, I needed a big, sweeping canvas with high stakes and lives and
kingdoms at risk, and a time when teens were in a position shape the world
around them. That search brought me to the middle ages and a world full of
sacred relics, patron saints, and lots of social turbulence.

Then
I stumbled across another fascinating research tidbit and learned that many
women in the Middle Ages preferred joining a convent to marriage because
convent life gave them more independence and autonomy than they could ever have
as married women! That kind of lit my imagination on fire and began to play
with what sort of convent would be the best avenue for my heroine’s journey,
and I decided on a convent that would give her power over life and death.

One of the
things that stood out to me in GRAVE MERCY was the way you created a very
realistic girl from a medieval world that would still be sympathetic to readers
today. Can you tell us a little bit about how you balanced the medieval world
and character details with modern readers?

Wow, interesting question! She wasn’t a medieval person to me, she
was simply Ismae, a girl struggling to find her place in this world and carve
out some sense of power over her own life, somewhat universal themes that apply
to any historical time period. So I focused on her core, internal arc first,
and I really do think that those types of archetypal journeys sort of transcend
time—they apply to us all.

One of the things I find most fascinating about writing historical
fantasy is really trying to understand the worldview of people living in
earlier times. What was life like without technology, where there was little
understanding of science or the laws of physics and so much of life felt random
and out of one’s control? Since Ismae belonged to a convent that served Death,
what would her faith look like? How would her devotion be tested? What sorts of
rituals would her life entail? Those questions were in the forefront of my mind
whenever I sat down to write and helped me get into the head of a 15th century
girl—what metaphors and similes would she use? What points of reference would
she have? So that was probably the key to having her feel medieval on the page.

I
also tried to (mostly!) use words that were
only in use prior to the 16th century or phrases that felt reminiscent of that
era. I definitely fudged sometimes; when the choice came down to readability I
went for that over historical accuracy every time, because my overriding goal
was that the story and the voice of Ismae be accessible to today’s teen reader

Can you tell us
a little bit about the process--particularly the timeline--of writing &
publishing GRAVE MERCY?

I first got the
rough glimmers of the idea for this book about seven years ago. I worked on it
for five or six years, squeezing it in between other, contracted novels and
projects, so I was able to take my time researching and building the world of
the story. Because it evolved into such a strange, bizarre idea, I promised
myself I didn’t have to show the finished product to anyone if I didn’t want
to. (This is a little lie I often tell myself that somehow gives me the freedom
I need to get the story down.)

I ended up doing countless drafts, mostly because there were
just so many different directions the story could go in! Not to mention a huge
variety of tones it could take, and it just took me forever to figure out which
story I wanted to tell. I think that’s one of the luxuries we lose once we
become published and are writing on contract—that freedom to play in the world
of story and take our time, so I try to make time in my life for those kind of
projects.

However, once I settled on the story I wanted to tell, it
still took me forever to nail the voice. I got halfway through an early draft
and realized that third person POV simply wasn’t working. So I changed the
entire book to first person, which is much, MUCH more than simply changing
pronouns. There is an entire different flow to language and narration when you
change POV. The manuscript flowed much better, but I was still having problems
with the heroine getting lost among the dramatic historical events. It wasn’t until page 350 (of a 420 page
mss) that I realized that the book had to be in first person PRESENT tense. I took to my bed for a
week with a case of the vapors when I realized that. And writing in first
person present is like speaking an entirely different language, so I had to
completely rewrite the whole damn thing—again.

Which taught me an important lesson: experiment with tenses and POVs in
the early stages of a book—just don’t set your POV choice on default mode.

So about seven years from first glimmer to publication, and
about twelve drafts. Not a quick or easy process, but definitely one of the
most rewarding books I’ve ever written.

If your reader
could only take away one emotion, theme, or idea from GRAVE MERCY, what would
you want it to be?

That we owe it to ourselves to wrestle with the concepts of
love and faith and honor and duty. We need to figure out what those mean for
ourselves and not swallow whole the concepts handed to us by others.

YOUR WRITING

What's the most surprising thing you've
learned since becoming a writer?

How exposed I feel. I never expected that, but the deeper you dig
to tell compelling stories, the more you expose parts of yourself, many of them
not even consciously. It is a deeply uncomfortable feeling and not one I would
choose (I am a card carrying introvert, after all) but apparently it is the
tithe I must pay to the writing gods.

Beyond the
typical--never give up, believe in yourself--what would be the single best
advice you'd like to give another writer?

You know that book you’re terrified to write? The one that is too
hard, too scary, too weird, or too damn intimidating. Yeah, that one. That’s the one you need to
write.

(Beth's note: that answer right there, the one above? Possibly the best answer ever.)

What do you
think are your strongest and weakest points in writing?

Evil question! My
weakest points (that I will admit to publicly) are an overfondness for
exclamation points, parenthetical asides, and em dashes. And I am truly terrible
at proofing my own stuff unless I haven’t looked at it for three months.

Probably my
strongest point is that I am always hungry to learn more, try more, take it
farther, deeper, wider. I love that I have a career that allows me to learn new
things every single time I sit down to work, and I try to take full advantage
of that.

And now for a giveaway! Leave a comment with your email address below to be entered to win a ARC copy of GRAVE MERCY--and it's SIGNED! Please note that the ARC has a different cover. One winner will be picked next Monday; sorry, but this needs to be North America only.